Torchwood (2006-2011)

"Torchwood. Outside the government; beyond the police. Fighting for the future on behalf of the human race. The 21st Century is when everything changes, and Torchwood is ready."

Torchwood follows the lives of the members of the Cardiff branch of the Torchwood Institute, primarily that of Captain Jack Harkness (played by John Barrowman), last seen in Doctor Who 'The Parting of the Ways', who is the team's leader.

Broadcast History

The series has experienced a very varied history, starting it's first series on digital channel BBC Three, with 13 standalone episodes and no multi-part stories (though the final two episodes to lead on from one another), with the second series taking much the same template, but promoted to the terrestrial BBC Two.

The third series was cut-down to 5 episodes, but this was because it had once more been promoted up a channel to BBC One, and Russell T Davies did not want to alienate a primetime audience. The third series - which went under the official banner title of Torchwood: Children of Earth - broadcast on consecutive nights from Mon 6th to Fri 10th July 2009 to high critical acclaim. It elevated the once-digital-channel sci-fi cult series to a wider, primetime BBC One audience of 7 million and more each night - the highest ever for the show. Torchwood: Children of Earth also broke broadcast records overseas, giving Torchwood a whole new US, Canadian and Australian fanbase with it's UK fans.

The Fouth series went up to 10 episodes, Because of the success of Children of Earth, They decided to do another story ark. It went as the title Torchwood:Miracle day. It aired on 2 channels Startz and BBC One.

Origins

The original concept for Torchwood began many years before the announcement of Doctor Who's return was made in 2003, when Russell T Davies had an idea of a group of people akin to Buffy the Vampire Slayer, who investigated strange and alien goings on, and solved cases with the use of a glove that had the power to resurrect the dead for short periods of time. The original title Davies had in his head for many years for this was 'Excalibur', hence the mention in Torchwood 2.1 'Kiss Kiss Bang Bang' when Captain John Hart (James Marsters) suggested this as their "team name".